Hugo Rodriguez
Nicotina - La Vita Senza Filtro

THE REVIEW

"Why don't you quit smoking?"

This question, in the hit parade of foolish questions, has been in a close race for years for the first place with "Did you get hurt?" after a free-fall tumble with arm\leg in a cast. "Please move with that cigarette ‘cause my child is inhaling all this secondhand smoke! He's only seven months old!" And a dimwitted mother who probably believes she's taking him for an aerosol treatment when she pushes him around in a stroller at the same height as exhaust pipes. Besieged by the health-conscious rage, we smokers also have lost our past allure, the indiscreet charm of elegant smoke spirals, of pure ash. Today, smoking stains the teeth yellow, causes cancers, tumors and is the main cause of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. In short, smoking leads straight to the grave. Well, at this point I have no choice but to dedicate this review to all the nonsmokers, those who say "no" to the vice, those who have eaten bread and fox, those who have not yet considered that perhaps death is nothing more than a simple combination.

Mexico City. Lolo is a young hacker with a hobby for voyeurism. In love with his neighbor, he spies on her through cameras he installed in her house. One night, he is tasked by two criminals to provide them with the computer materials needed to rob a Swiss bank, materials that serve as barter goods to exchange for twenty diamonds handed over by a Russian mobster. However, the neighbor discovers the truth about Lolo and ransacks his small studio, swapping the CDs. Convinced he has the disc containing the requested information, the hacker hands it over to the two criminals, triggering a large and bloody mix-up involving a couple of pharmacists in marital crisis and a pair of unscrupulous barbers.

What connects the characters of the second film directed by Hugo Rodriguez (debuted in 1994 with "En medio de la nada") is their addiction to smoking. Everyone smokes: the protagonist Lolo, Diego Luna ("Y tu mamá también"), the younger of the two criminals Nene, Lucas Crespi, Eulogia the barber’s wife, Carmen the pharmacist's partner, etc. The strange relationship that the characters establish with smoking (Chronic dependency, desire to quit, toxic love) is the starting point for a funny conversation about the harm and joys of cigarettes, which runs parallel to the crime intrigue. The two threads perfectly converge in the general theme: randomness. Due to a fatal combination, Lolo mixes up the CDs, by pure coincidence, the Russian arrives at the barbershop and inadvertently tells them he has twenty diamonds with him; coincidentally, the pharmacists get involved in the story. And always by fatality, despite the incessant "click" of the lighter, they die. The screenplay, by Mario Salinas, unravels without excessive flabbiness, balancing the intertwining stories and remaining faithful to the film's choral nature.

Hugo Rodriguez does not betray the screenplay and revitalizes it with a fluid and direct style, using sensual frames and emphasizing various moments of dramatic tension. The achievements of the direction allow the film to be categorized as a grotesque noir, worthy of the early Almodovar, mixed with the influence of some of the leading contemporary American directors, from Tarantino to the Coen brothers. But don't expect a masterpiece. Acclaimed at home with seven Ariel awards, it hasn’t achieved the same critical and public success in Europe. It remains a fast and enjoyable film but, to be honest, the rich poverty of Hispanic peoples, the vibrancy of places, the easy abandonment of morality cannot be said to be original traits, in other words, it adds nothing new to what has already been shown by other films that unfold along the same wavelength, with "La comunidad" and, with the necessary differences, "Carne trémula" leading the way.

Now excuse me while I go smoke a cigarette.